


Stories Told at Night

by Tassos



Category: Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin, Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Crossover, Documents, Fusion, Gen, Oral History, Poetry, Post-Apocalypse, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: Like the descriptions of the creatures, the customs vary, but they all share a core similarity centered on a series of gifts and the appearance of a person called a Night Man.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hannah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/gifts).



> Thank you so much for the prompt for this. I hadn't read Always Coming Home before you recced it, and it was a book that got under my skin and has kept me thinking.

  
**The Night Man Song**

Shadows move swiftly.  
Shadows' eyes blink slowly.  
Run, run, or be caught.  
Run, run, or be caught.

Shadows move fearlessly.  
Shadow strikes cut deeply.  
Run, run, to the Night Man.  
Run, run, to the Night Man.

Shadows shy from the Night Man.  
Shadows die from the Night Man.  
Pay the price to the Night Man.  
Run, run, from the Night Man.

* * *

  
**Meeting The Cold Man**  
_As told by Bright Moon of the Obsidian of Sinshan_  


This is the story as my grandmother told me of the night she met the Cold Man. When she wore the undyed clothes, she often ran when she went out gathering berries far in the hills near She Watches mountain and Sinshan Mountain. Her second name was Swift Foot for she was the fastest runner through the hills. She would run so swiftly that her feet would carry her well past where most would stop to gather. Her swift feet would lead her to the hills on the far side of the ridge, where the berries were sweeter and the nuts plentiful. She was well known for giving the sweetest jams and the richest nut butter.

One day after the Grass, Swift Foot ran to She Watches for the last of the wild juniper berries. She knew where to find the sweetest berries, after all, even as the days grew shorter. 

That day the sky had no clouds, and the wind was calm as she ran up the mountain paths. She paused at each thicket she came to and tasted the berries there. The ones closest to Sinshan had already been picked clean by other gatherers. So she ran on, through the hills as the grass greened beneath her feet. The berries at the foot of She Watches were too small. So she ran on, up the mountain's knee and through the leaning boulders to the stream. The berries here were too sour. So she ran on, the the top of the ridge that flows from She Watches' backside where the manzanita grows thick and juniper hugs the slopes. The berries here were sweet, but Swift Foot knew that she could find sweeter. So she ran on, farther than she'd ever run before. Morning passed into afternoon and she crossed through She Watches' shadow till she was at the very edge, where most people have better sense than to go.

But here is where Swift Foot found the sweetest patch of juniper she had ever found. So there she filled her satchel with berries.

So pleased was she with her find that she did not keep an eye on the sky. She had run so far, and now she was tired and did not have the strength to run home. It was twilight when she finished her picking and full dark by the time she began to cross back through She Watches' shadow. Swift Foot did not fear, however, because it was a clear night and she could see the stars to guide her home. She knew bears did not wander here, and she was certain she could scare off any coyotes.

After a while though, she felt eyes on her as she passed through the paths. There was no moon so she had to pick her way carefully. When she stopped to look around, she didn't see any creatures, or hear them either. So she kept going. But the feeling of being watched did not go away. Then one time when she stopped to listen again, she heard the unmistakeable sound of a growl. But it wasn't a bear's growl or the snarl of a coyote. It was deeper, with the threat of violence in it.

Swift Foot felt her fear then, of this creature in the dark. She kept going, picking her way, but now she heard the creature's growl and the heavy step of its footsteps behind her. It was stalking her, and when it growled again, it sounded like cruel laughter. 

Even though she was tired from a long day of running, she began to run again. Her fear made her fatigue go away. But in the darkness she could not run swiftly. Rocks and roots leaped up to grab her feet in the darkness. She stumbled once, then again, but the heavy footsteps behind her propelled her forward. Then a root took full hold of her swift feet and pulled her to the ground.

The creature stalking laughed long and loud, for he knew he had his prey. Swift Foot had twisted her ankle and could not stand, so she took up a rock and threw it with a defiant yell at where she heard the creature and she heard its cry when the rock struck. For a moment she thought she might have scared it away, but before she could feel relief, it stepped into view. It was taller than the tallest man, with glowing eyes, and long teeth. It looked like a person and not like a person, like a misshapen version of a man with only death in its eyes. It was not a person who would sing heya for her when it struck her down.

It was going to pounce, going to eat her with its big teeth, but then, its head flew off its shoulders and the creature collapsed like a falling tree. Swift Foot was so surprised, she couldn't believe her eyes and thought it must be a trick. But it wasn't a trick and a moment later, she picked out another figure standing where the creature had stood over her. This figure was of a man, but not one dressed as one from the Valley, and he carried a long knife which he had just used to cut off the creature's head.

He squatted beside her. "Are you all right, niblet?" he asked with a strange accent to his words, though he spoke them easily.

"Yes," Swift Foot said, though she winced when she tried to stand and her ankle wouldn't bear her weight.

"You're far from home," said the man, and he offered her a hand to help her up. It was cold. Colder than ice. The man had cold, cold hands.

"Yes," Swift Foot said, unsure whether she should trust this man with cold hands. 

But he helped her to her feet and offered to carry her back to Sinshan, which made Swift Foot stand tall. 

"I can walk," she said, offended. Even if her ankle hurt she would not be a burden.

The Cold Man laughed to see such pride, and offered instead to walk with her so she wouldn't be bothered by any more creatures.

"I've never seen a creature like that before. What was it?" Swift Foot asked.

"Your people call them Eternal Creatures. It was hungry. You looked like a good snack. What were you doing out here anyway, so far from your home?" the Cold Man asked.

So Swift Foot told him of the juniper berries and wanting to find the sweetest ones for jam. The Cold Man smiled and asked if he could try some when she made it and asked what else she made. And so it went as they walked through the night. But one question was bothering Swift Foot, and eventually, when the moon was high, she asked it.

"Our hunters can't kill Eternal Creatures. They don't fall to bullets or arrows and most knives won't cut their skin. How did you kill it?" she asked.

"Ah. I have a special knife," said the Cold Man. "Made in the ancient ways from before the Before. And you have to know where to cut, how to cut, and it takes a great strength that human people don't have."

"But you're human," she said.

"But I'm not," the Cold Man said. Then in the moonlight Swift Foot watched as his face changed and became a fearsome face with fearsome teeth. 

Swift Foot froze. She couldn't run, because her ankle was hurt, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, because on their walk through She Watches' shadow, she'd begun to like the Cold Man and his odd but easy way of speaking. She liked that he asked after her work, that he wanted to try her jams and pies.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

She squared her shoulders. "No," she said, and by saying it made it true.

His face smoothed back into a human face, and he grinned at her. He had a handsome face, Swift Foot thought, with only one small scar in his eyebrow to mar it.

"You remind me of a girl I knew once," the Cold Man said, and then he was silent for a while. His footsteps left no sound and his face was drawn in thought as they walked and walked, up the ridge, past the juniper bushes Swift Foot had tasted earlier that day.

She wondered about this girl, that she would make him think so hard, and as her ankle throbbed harder, impossible to ignore, she asked, "What girl do I remind you of? Was she your wife?"

"No, not my wife," the Cold Man said with a laugh, "though I did love her."

He glanced at her then and saw her pain. Then he glanced at the moon that lit the way sinking toward the horizon. Dawn was not far off. They had walked out of She Watches' shadow and up She Watches' shoulder, and Swift Foot knew there were many more hours ahead of them back to Sinshan. The Cold Man went off the deer path and led her down a nearby canyon to a cave he knew of there. 

"We'll rest here," he said. "We won't be bothered here."

"And you'll tell me the story of this girl?" Swift Foot asked.

"And I'll tell you the story of the girl," the Cold Man said, helping her sit with his cold hands. He sat beside her and she leaned against his cold chest. The day's run and the night's walk had made Swift Foot very tired.

The Cold Man began his story of the sunshine girl, whose first name was Buffy and her second Slayer, who fought the Eternal Creatures from the before Before. Swift Foot didn't hear the whole story, though, for she fell asleep against the Cold Man in the cave. 

When she woke the sun was high in the sky. The Cold Man was still there, warmed where her body had warmed his.

"You'll have to go the rest of the way alone," he told her. "I can't walk in the sun."

Swift Foot nodded, for she had figured out what he was. "You're one of the Night People."

The Cold Man nodded.

Swift Food did not want to leave. "Can I come to visit you?" she asked. "I want to hear the end of the story of the girl you loved."

The Cold Man smiled. "You can visit if you bring me some of your jam," he said, and he told her where to meet him that wouldn't take her into places that should be avoided.

So Swift Foot went back to Sinshan alone, and the Cold Man stayed in the cave until night fell again, and then he returned to his home in the hills.

* * *

  
**The Eternal Creatures of the Ninth House**

When it comes to interacting with the native predator animals in the Valley, the Kesh take a very practical approach. They respect the strength and size of the bear, the speed and daring of coyotes, and the venom of snakes. But some accounts of the hunting dangers throughout the Valley go beyond simple precautions and marking signs of being in the vicinity of a bear cave.

These accounts often reference the Eternal Creatures, sometimes referred to as Creatures of the Ninth House. There are not to be confused with the hawk and other people of the house that we would consider normal animals. These creatures are something else entirely. They encapsulate a wide range of descriptions that vary from town to town but have a few similarities. First, they are usually generally human-shaped, walking on two-legs with two arms and a head. Second, their teeth always feature prominently, as does their penchant for eating people who stray into their marked territories, who are often killed by a violent death.

While the Kesh have an extensive nomenclature to describe the variety of other, more usual animals in the Valley of Na, Eternal Creatures appear to fill the role of a vague, supernatural boogey-monster meant to keep people away from certain locations, which adapts itself to the needs of the storyteller. It doesn't matter if the Eternal Creature is six-feet tall with red tentacles or eight-feet with crab claws instead of hands when the conclusion for the story is that trespassing in these places leads to a bloody, violent death.

There are customs, however, for warding off Eternal Creatures both in stories -- where the customs are often ignored -- and in practice in the areas around the towns where the Eternal Creatures are said to live. Most are simple things, charms and songs that keep the towns and herds safe. But sometimes something more is needed. The hunters who most often venture near the places the Eternal Creatures live, or the Bay Laurel Lodge who scout the area, or sometimes the forest-dwelling people who live even closer to them, are the ones who mark when the time is right to ward off the Eternal Creatures.

Like the descriptions of the creatures, the customs vary, but they all share a core similarity centered on a series of gifts and the appearance of a person called a Night Man. These are a handful of hermits that live alone in the hills and who rarely interact with the Kesh. They are considered outside the normal ebb and flow of the Four and Five Houses, but they are the tamers of the Eternal Creatures who inhabit the Ninth House, who ensure that they accept the gifts.

Four gifts are prepared for the Eternal Creature and five for the closest Night Man, whom members of the Finders Lodge know how to find. The gifts for the Eternal Creature are collected and set out by the hunter who found and interpreted the signs at the place where the signs were located. These are often three offerings of meat and organs of increasing size, culminating with the fourth gift of a freshly killed deer. The hunter leaves each of the gifts the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth nights, setting them out when the sun touches the horizon at dusk and singing the Eat Well, Drink Well song until the sun has slipped past the horizon. They leave then to return to town before twilight fades.

The five gifts prepared for the Night Man are collected by one of the Finders Lodge, usually one who has spoken with the Night Man before. The Night Men are elusive, so sometimes no Finder knows them, but they have a meeting spot and that's where the Finder sets the gifts at sunset. As the hunters do for the Eternal Creatures, the gift are set when the sun touches the horizon at dusk and they sing the Eat Well, Drink Well until it fully sets, leaving right after. The first gift put out on the first night is always tobacco. The next gifts may vary, set out on the third, fifth, and seventh nights but are often some combination of wine, prepared food, and a live sheep or goat.

The gift for the ninth night, like for the Eternal Creature, is fresh game, a deer or sometimes if the need is great a bear, which the hunters bring to the Finders. Usually more than one Finder is needed this night to take the gift to the meeting place because of the size of the game. There, the deer is hung by its back legs from a tree and its throat punctured so that its blood drains into a bucket set beneath it. It is very important for the bucket to catch all of the blood. The Finders sing the Eat Well, Drink Well song while the blood drains, and stop when the blood stops. Then all but the Finder who has been chosen leave. The last Finder stays to meet the Night Man when he comes.

Descriptions of the meeting with the Night Man are always brief, and often the telling includes an exchange of news, both of the Eternal Creature that the people want to appease and of the goings-on since the last warding. The Night Man either accepts the last gift or asks for an additional price. It's unclear what that price may be, or the circumstances under which it's asked for, as it is one of the secrets of the Finders Lodge, but sometimes the Finder left behind comes back bleeding, and one account from Chumo told of the Finder found strung up like the deer, with the empty, blood-stained bucket beneath his head.

* * *

  
**Swift Foot and the Cold Man**  
_As told by Bright Moon of the Obsidian of Sinshan_  


After Swift Foot returned to Sinshan, she went to her heyimas and to the Madrone Lodge and to the Finders Lodge to ask about the Night People. She told them of the Cold Man, and they told her to be cautious, to approach carefully.

The Finders knew the best ways to approach the Night Men. They knew that you had to be careful, respectful. First, they told Swift Foot, she must bring tobacco in daylight and leave it at the meeting place, a reversal to show she came in peace. If the gift was accepted then she could bring the second gift, something made in town, something that couldn't be made in the woods. Knives were good they told her, or other metal tools. The Night Man might return this gift and leave scratchings in the dirt or on a rock to tell what they wanted instead. You must then bring that gift, they told her.

If they accepted the second gift, then you could approach the meeting place at night and the Night Man might come. Or they might not.

They warned her never to drink with the Night Man. They warned her never to invite them anywhere.

So Swift Foot gave some of her juniper jam to Pale, and Pale gave her cured tobacco leaves. She took them to the meeting place in daylight, and when those were accepted she took her juniper jam there at night.

The Cold Man was waiting for her when she arrived, leaning back against a nearby tree. He smiled when she came closer. He accepted the jam, and then indicated she should follow.

He led her to his house, a small house against a canyon wall that opened into cave that was brightly lit by electric lights. It was the first time she'd seen him in light, and he was even more handsome than he was by moonlight. Soft brown hair curled over his ears. He wore leather pants and shirt and coat that were all dyed as black as the night.

His house was like a normal house, with chairs and a table and a wood stove. He gestured for her to sit with him at the table, and she said, "Will you tell me the end of the story now?"

The Cold Man laughed, and said yes, and he told her again the story of meeting the sunshine girl he had loved while he rolled the tobacco into cigarettes. It was a good story.

Swift Foot left at dawn, but came back the next night, this time bringing bread so they could spread the jam, and this time the Cold Man told her the story of the sunshine girl's fierce mother. He described living in the before Before, of a town that was swallowed by caves before the Inland Sea swallowed the caves.

He was a good storyteller, and sometimes he would stand up and act out some of the parts. Swift Foot came back often, and that is how she came to know the Cold Man. He was very old, though he looked young. He had killed many and saved many.

"What was your first name?" Swift Foot asked one night.

"William," the Cold Man told her, which was a nonsense word. "Spike, was my second name," he told her, which was a violent name that matched the violence in his stories.

"And your middle name?" she asked.

"Some call me the Master, now," he said, which he explained was because he was the oldest and strongest of the _vampires_ , his word for the Night People. He shrugged as he said it, as if it weren't important.

Swift Foot thought about that name, but she wasn't sure it was a good name for him. "I've a name for you," she offered, and when he asked she gave him the name Cold Man, and he smiled and accepted it. That was how he took on his second middle name.

* * *

  
**The Night Dance**  
_A gift to the Madrone Lodge by Swift Foot of the Obsidian of Sinshan_  


The Cold Man told me he sometimes came to the dances. He stayed on the hills, watching and listening to the World and the Moon and the Wine after dark. A couple times for the World, he said, he came down to the dancing place and watched up close, to listen to the music and the names for the fire. He didn't come often, and he only spoke to the Finders who knew where the meeting place was and sometimes came to ask him for stories, like I did. He knew a lot of Finders over many years, but most of them had gone westward by the time he accepted my gifts, and he would wait a long time after they did before coming into town again.

"The world has changed, but people still live and die," he would say. He was sad about that, but not so sad that he stopped coming.

So he knew our dances. But we didn't know his dances, the dances the Night People did in the hills. I saw the Night Dance, once, when I visited one night after the Water.

We were walking in the forest, as we often did when the nights were warm. The Cold Man was most active at night, and liked to walk his borders, make sure the Eternal Creatures weren't making trouble. There were more than I ever knew, and he told me about all of them. Where they lived, what they liked to eat, tricks to keep them at bay -- which I already knew some of-- and how to kill them, though he told me to try running away first. In town, we had only done the formal warding once that I could remember, and the Cold Man made sure that we didn't have to do it very often. Not all of the Eternal Creatures had big teeth for eating flesh, and some of them didn't even like flesh. Some of them were nice, and some had families just like bears or coyotes. The Cold Man frightened the ones with teeth. He played dice with some of the ones that didn't, gambling rabbits and field mice that the Creatures would eat instead. 

We were walking in the forest, coming back from one of these visits, when a woman stepped into our path. The moon was low so she was hard to see, and the Cold Man pushed me behind him. I peered around his shoulder and saw that this was a Night Woman, with her face changed to her Night Face.

"Hello, Master," she said.

"Hello, Kitten," said the Cold Man. He was tense and wary, a predator on high alert. "What brings you to this side of the mountain?"

"Just passing through," Kitten said. "Is that lunch?" she asked, pointing at me.

I knew what she meant. The Night People drink blood to live, and human blood tastes sweet. 

"She's in my territory and none of your concern," the Cold Man said.

Kitten smiled and it wasn't a friendly smile. That's when the dance started. A give and take of power and prowess flowing back and forth between them. It was a dance done to music only they could hear, for reasons only they could know. Blood flowed, and at the end of it the Cold Man had his arm around Kitten's throat. 

"What brings you to this side of the mountain?" he asked again softly. I had never heard his voice sound so deadly before.

"Just passing through," Kitten said.

"Then pass through, or I'll tie you to a tree and let the sun burn you to ash."

When he said that at first I didn't know what it meant, but then the true meaning of his words sunk in. The Night People never walked in daylight, and that was when I realized why. It made me look twice at the Cold Man, who was always kind to me, who had protected me, even though his stories told me of the lives he'd taken.

The Cold Man and I followed till she left his borders. I walked slowly behind him, wondering the whole time if I would see him kill that night, but Kitten passed through without further trouble, only scowling over her shoulder.

It was near dawn so we went to a nearby cave before the sun rose. The Cold Man knew where all the caves and shadowed places were in his territory.

"Is that how it always goes when another Night Person comes?" I asked. We watched the sun lighten the slopes outside.

"No." The Cold Man stretched out in the dimmest part of the cave. "No, sometimes Kitten comes to talk. She comes to the meeting place, and if I want to talk she comes to my house and we keep each other company."

"It seemed like you didn't like her," I said, somewhat sharply. I was jealous, you see, because I was the only one who saw the Cold Man that I knew. I kept our meetings and the stories he told close to my heart. I hadn't yet come inland, but I thought about it when I visited the Cold Man.

"Oh, I like her," the Cold Man said. "Sometimes. When she's not being a brat. Or eyeing my people." He looked at me then. "Doesn't mean I would hesitate to kill her if she needed killing."

"That sounds complicated," I said. I tried to imagine killing someone I shared my time with and couldn't. I couldn't imagine killing anyone at all.

The Cold Man grinned one of his dangerous grins that always reminded me that he didn't have a House. That he was outside the Houses of the World. "It's really not."

I was tired after being out all night, so I fell asleep not long after dawn. I remember I had troubled dreams where I was dancing outside the world, but I couldn't see or hear or smell anything. I could only touch my partner's hands, but I couldn't understand the shape of him, whether he was a man or a creature, for he felt like both. 

When I woke, the sun was high outside the cave, and my head was pillowed on the Cold Man's thigh. He was awake and watching me sleep. He didn't look tired at all. He was keeping watch over me, and the knowledge sent warmth through my whole body. For a moment I had the feeling from my dream, where I saw both his human and his Night face at the same time. But then he smiled at me and the feeling passed. When I left the cave, he had to stay, but I came back to the meeting place a few nights later.

That night he told me a story of the Night Woman who made him, who was mad and whom he loved until he couldn't love her any longer. It was a sad story, and he was sad telling it. It was a difficult story, because the sunshine girl whom he also loved was in it. He said again, as he had that first time, that I reminded him of her.

"I'm not a warrior," I said. The sunshine girl he told me about was strong and proud and brave. Nothing like me.

"You're not afraid," he said. He nodded at his house, and I remembered the stories I'd first been told of the Night People.

"I'm always afraid," I said.

"So was she," he said.

I was afraid then, of the smile he gave me next, but I was also not afraid, for it was the smile I knew best. It was the smile that bade me return more nights than not. He was gentle when I came inland, but his hands were cold because he was the Cold Man.


End file.
